We are so excited that for the second year in a row, Cisco Small Business has been chosen as a Top 100 Small Business Influencer.

Ved Sharma, Dir/GM, Cisco SMB Services states, “I could not be prouder of our teams whose combined efforts continue to make Cisco Small Business products and services an industry-leading preference for our customers. Our focus on reaching the Small Business community via Facebook, Twitter and other social media avenues helps us to engage with and communicate to small and mid-sized companies. ”

The Small Business Influencer Awards are presented to those who are influential to small businesses in North America, through the products, services, knowledge, information or support they provide to the small business market.

The Champions are selected by a panel of judges steeped in the small business market, based on the following criteria;

advocating on behalf of small businesses,

providing products or services that address the unique challenges faced by small businesses,

revolutionizing how small businesses do business or how they solve business challenges,

helping small businesses grow,

or otherwise impacting small businesses in a significant way.

Says Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends and one of the co-founders of the Awards, “Influencers are those who play crucial roles in the small business ecosystem, but who often are in the background. The Top 100 Champions have distinguished themselves in some way. Check out the Cisco Award. The Small Business Influencer Awards enable the small business community to nominate and show their support for those that influence and support them.

Though fun and even useful, free apps can pose security risks to your users and your business

The old adage “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” has more than a kernel of truth to it when it comes to free applications. Free apps seem harmless, and they’re very tempting. Who doesn’t want a free version of Angry Birds? What’s wrong with a free banking app from your credit card company? But even if the app itself is legitimate and thoroughly vetted, it can still pose a security risk to the device it’s running on. Free apps are more dangerous to your employees and your network than they appear at first glance.

People can easily download a wide range of free apps for their smartphones and tablets as well as for your company’s computers. From wildly popular games like Angry Birds Space (which was downloaded three million times in only three days) to fitness trackers and social media tools, there’s a free app for anything anyone would want to do on his or her mobile device. Likewise, the Internet is teeming with free apps to customize desktops and work more easily. But the problem with free is that the program use is almost always paid for through advertising or information gathering—and it’s in those aspects where the danger often lies. Read More »

When employees use their own devices for work, there’s no such thing as a personal security breach

It’s no exaggeration to say that mobile smart devices have changed the way people work. With smartphone in hand, employees now expect to be able to check email from their kid’s baseball game, finalize financial transactions on the fly, and log into cloud-based services at the gym—not to mention play Angry Birds whenever they want. The downside to this round-the-clock connectivity is the security risk it can introduce to your network and, because devices are personally owned, the difficulty of locking them down. These days, there’s no such thing as a personal security breach. A security incident on a personal device can put your entire network at risk.

Small business switches with auto-deployment features remove the complexity of rolling out IP-based voice systems

If you’ve decided to upgrade your legacy phone system to a Voice-over-IP (VoIP) solution, you want to make sure that installation is as smooth and trouble-free as possible. A good place to start is with your network switch. As the traffic controller of your network, the switch connects different devices and allows them to communicate with each other. To make rolling out IP-based voice easier, you can choose a managed or smart switch with integrated automatic deployment features and built-in configuration tools.

The right service plan can maximize network uptime and minimize lost revenues

New products and technologies, increasing mobility among employees, the need for round-the-clock access to company data and resources—these are just some of the factors driving small businesses’s growing dependence on their networks. This makes network downtime costly for any small business. According to Infonetics Research, unplanned network downtime costs companies an average of 3.6 percent revenue per year. And that doesn’t include the incalculable cost of damage to your business’s reputation caused by the downtime.

To minimize network downtime and ensure your network is available for employees to connect, collaborate, and communicate with customers and partners as well as each other, you may want to consider a support contract. A service plan will not only help protect your company’s technology investment, but it can also help save lost revenue and customers. Read More »

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